Museum Teylers shows at the exhibition Michelangelo’s men an adorable sketch of a woman crouching down and sweeping the floor. But otherwise the display cases are full of studies of bulking muscles in men’s chest, thigh and buttock. Teylers suggests that Michelangelo’s homosexual orientation can be deduced from these sketches. Difficult. Even a straight man can sketch a perfect man’s buttocks. Besides, if you start like this you can be Michelangelo by virtue Pieta just as easily distinguish a tender straight man. Someone who, with a moving eye for feminine beauty, depicted a grieving woman in whom the young mother emerges again, now that her adult son hangs dead on her lap.
From the drawings by Teylers it is impossible to determine whether Michelangelo was homosexual. And why would you? These sketches of chests and butts are not yet your true image, they are a prelude. Not yet enthusiastic works of art, but living corpses, studied on the dissecting table. And yes, some are worth seeing, because there already are Daseinsfreude in glitter.
Daseinsfreude, I picked up that word a long time ago Unsere Leichen live nochthe film with which underground filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim paid an honorary salute to five older women. The film shows how they claim their place in the world, wiping the floor with the prejudices against their age (it was not yet called ‘ageism’) and mocking the oh-how-young-being-so-special religion. They stood unwavering in their right to enjoy their existence in a highly personal way, even if they were considered crazy, eccentric to say the least.
‘Kontakthof’ by Pina Bausch.
Photo Ursula Kaufmann
Dancers
Daseinsfreude is a core concept, I saw it gloriously put into practice again because I was lucky enough to get a ticket for Kontakthof. That was a legendary dance performance by Pina Bausch in 1978, and now again. Not as a remake, more as a re-enactment with the original dancers. They were in their twenties then, now between seventy and eighty.
Dancers in their old age, then threaten to look like monkeys. Or funny, or bitter tragedy. None of that, this is an echo of what was there, but also brand new because the piece has been delivered to the passage of time. Of the twenty dancers, nine are left. That means empty chairs, gaps in the choreography and duets that turned into a solo with empty arms. A film projection from 1978 reveals how the dancers overcome eroded flexibility with character. The men are no longer able to perform the lightning boogie woogie, but they do evoke it. Also interesting: those men became old men, the women did not look like old women but as undated beings.
Went in 1978 Kontakthof about the misunderstanding between men and women. Considering in 2025 Kontakthof that everything passes and everyone disappears. That’s okay, no one is sad. It does sound melancholy. Well, it’s over for all of us.
But not yet!
NEW: Give this item as a gift
As an NRC subscriber you can subscribe every month 10 items give as a gift to someone without an NRC subscription. The recipient can read the article directly, without a paywall.